Highlights

The Ryzen 3 2200G is priced at Rs. 7,290 + GST in India

The Ryzen 5 2400G is priced at Rs. 10,990 + GST in India

AMD claims a huge performance lead in graphics compared to Intel

AMD has officially launched its first Ryzen desktop processors with integrated graphics. The new AMD Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G are first models in a new Ryzen 2xxx generation and feature integrated Radeon Vega graphics processors. AMD hopes to target entry-level users and is promising smooth gaming experiences at full-HD in the latest games, using low to medium settings.

While AMD's higher-end offerings offered significant performance and value benefits in many situations compared to Intel's equivalent processors, the low-end Ryzen models suffered because the need for a discrete graphics card pushed up the overall cost of a new PC. AMD is now replacing its most affordable Ryzen 3 1200 CPU with the new Ryzen 3 2400G, which is officially priced at Rs. 7,290 (plus 18 percent GST) in India. The Ryzen 5 2400G replaces the Ryzen 5 1400 in AMD's product stack, and is priced at Rs. 10,990 (plus 18 percent GST).

The Ryzen 3 2200G has four physical cores without multi-threading, a base speed of 3.5GHz, and a boost speed of 3.7GHz. The Ryzen 3 2400G also has four cores but multi-threading is enabled allowing for eight threads. The base speed is 3.6GHz while the boost speed is 3.9GHz. In terms of graphics capabilities, the Ryzen 3 2200G has eight Radeon Vega compute units running at 1100MHz, while the Ryzen 5 2400G has eleven running at 1250MHz. Both models have 4MB of L3 cache, and officially support up to DDR4-2933 RAM. Both also have 65W TDP ratings and come with AMD's Wraith Stealth cooler in the box. As with all Ryzen CPUs, these new models are unlocked and overclockable.

Both new processors, codenamed 'Raven Ridge', use the same 300-series motherboards that have served for existing Ryzen 3, 5, and 7 CPUs. Video output is supported because these boards were designed to be compatible with AMD's previous-generation APUs with integrated graphics. Recently purchased motherboards should be ready to work with these CPUs, whereas older ones will require only a BIOS update. AMD has also confirmed that all Ryzen CPUs will be compatible with 400-series motherboards which will launch later this year along with updated Ryzen 2xxx 'Pinnacle Ridge' CPUs.

The company says that it has been able to leverage improvements to its foundry partner's 14nm fabrication technology, allowing it to drive higher frequencies within the same voltage and temperature limits. There have also been improvements to the speed and latency of the cache memory, which should lead to better responsiveness in certain applications. The Precision Boost feature has also been updated to version 2.0. This uses AMD's multiple sensors embedded through the Infinity Fabric interconnect of each CPU to adjust frequency dynamically as workloads change. The company now says that Precision Boost 2 is even more fine-grained and allows more cores to run at higher speeds more often.

With the Ryzen 3 2400, users should be able to build a low-cost PC and still play games at medium to low settings. AMD claims 52fps in Battlefield One, 56fps in Overwatch (low), 45fps in Rocket League, 87fps in Skyrim, and 74fps in DOTA 2. For the Ryzen 5 2400G, AMD says users can expect 52fps in Battlefield One, 49fps in Overwatch (medium), 49fps in Rocket League, 96fps in Skyrim, and 31fps in The Witcher 3. AMD also points out that these new processors support AMD's Radeon technology including Freesync.

With the Ryzen 5 2400G in particular, AMD claims performance equal to that of an Intel Core i5-8400 CPU with an Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 GPU, at a much lower price. Graphics performance is purportedly 156 percent better than Intel's integrated GPU on its own, and general system performance is also 21 percent better, according to AMD. The company emphasises performance in multi-threaded applications in comparisons against Intel, because its advantage is being able to offer more cores and threads per CPU.

The new Ryzen 3 and 5 processors with integrated graphics will be sold in retail boxes with silver strips running across the top to differentiate them from standard CPUs. In contrast to Intel's strategy of integrating graphics processors into all its mainstream CPUs, there will be no Ryzen 7 models with integrated graphics, at least in this generation. AMD believes that those in the market for high-end CPUs will want a powerful graphics card anyway.

AMD has also announced a new cooler, the Wraith Prism, which improves upon the Wraith Max with individually addressable RGB LEDs and a design that works better on smaller motherboards. Finally, AMD is announcing a partnership with enterprise storage vendor Enmotus, to support the Enmotus Fuzedrive which allows users to create a multi-tier storage subsystem including spinning hard drives, fast SSDs and RAM caches, similar to Intel's Optane strategy.

Jamshed AvariEmail Jamshed
Jamshed Avari has been working in tech journalism as a writer, editor and reviewer for over eight years. He has reviewed hundreds of products ranging from smartphones and ... More